Columns By Mike WilmingtonWilmington@moviecitynews.com
Wilmington on Movies: The Last Mountain
Wilmington on Movies: Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer
Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer (One and a Half Stars) U.S.: John Schultz, 2011 Hard to believe. But there really is a move called “Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer.” And yes, it really is based on a popular kiddie book of the same title, about energetic third grader Judy and…
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Super 8
Super 8 (Four Stars) U.S.: J. J. Abrams, 2011 Remember what it was like when you were 12? 14? Twelve, wishing you were fourteen? Remember how magical the world was then? And how magical the movies were: the ones that you really loved and remembered and were really affected by? For me, that was 1958 and…
Read the full article »Digital Nation: ‘Viva Riva!’ … think ‘Harder They Come’ in Africa
Remember the jolt of excitement you experienced watching “The Harder They Come,” “City of God” and “Amores Perros” for the first time? How raw depictions of violence, sex, corruption and poverty flowed organically from the directors’ choices of actors, locations and music, whose singularity couldn’t have been faked or synthesized? These stories may have been…
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: True Grit, Another Year, Just Go With It, Carancho, Night Flight, The Housemaid, The Big C, White Collar … …
True Grit: Blu-ray There is a considerable difference between the re-making a classic movie for contemporary tastes and the re-adaptation of a novel, based primarily on a re-interpretation of the source material. While staying true to the original version of “True Grit” – for which, in 1969, John Wayne was awarded an Academy Award as…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: New. True Grit
PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW. True Grit (Four Stars) U.S.: Ethan and Joel Coen, 2010 (Paramount) The Western is one of the great America movie myths, and the Coen Brothers’ new version of Charles Portis’ novel, “True Grit” seems to me one of the great movie Westerns. America movies and American literature should join hands…
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: X-Men: First Class
(Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: Matthew Vaughn, 2011 Maybe I’m getting tired of super-heroes and super-heroines. Or maybe X-Men: First Class just has too many of them. In any case, the latest Marvel movie, by my reckoning, puts a first-rate cast into a third-rate story, nearly saves it with first or second rate production…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Pick of the Week, Box Set. Marlon Brando
PICK OF THE WEEK: BOX SET Greatest Classic Legends: Marlon Brando (Four Stars) U.S.: Various Directors, 1951-1967 (TCM/Warner) Marlon Brando, America‘s finest movie actor by general consensus, began his career at the top, in his early 20s, with a revolutionary stage and film performance — as Stanley Kowalski in playwright/screenwriter Tennessee Williams’ and director Elia…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Co-Picks of the Week, Classic. Platoon, Shoeshine
CO-PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSIC Platoon (Blu-ray/DVD) (Two Discs) (Four Stars) U.S.: Oliver Stone, 1986 (MGM/20th Century Fox) Oliver Stone, as most of us know, fought in the Vietnam War as a young man, and this is the story of what he went through there, translated into the fictionalized experiences of a young rifleman named Chris…
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: Drive Angry, Once Upon a Time in the West, Adua & Her Friends, A Clockwork Orange, Undertow, The Joke, Passion Play, Kaboom, Harvest …
Drive Angry: Blu-ray Apparently, the only person unaware that Nicolas Cage’s career is stuck in replay mode is Cage, himself. If the Oscar-winner is disturbed by how predictable he’s become since “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Honeymoon in Vegas” and “Moonstruck” put him on the A-list – and roles in “Face/Off,” “Adaptation” and “World Trade Center” further…
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